The BlackBerry KEYone will land in the UK in the next few weeks and here we take a look at whether or not this would be your dream phone, in our BlackBerry KEYone review.

BlackBerry KEYone design

The design of the BlackBerry KEYone does actually stand out against others, which all look a little to Apple-like. Here we see a soft textured back paired up with an impact resistant display and strong aluminium frame.

The display isn’t quite as square as some of the recent BlackBerry phones and measuring 4.5” diagonally, the screen has a 3:2 aspect ratio. The surface is scratch resistant and the resolution is 1620 x 1080 pixels.

The design also includes a fingerprint sensor and a customisable Convenience Key that can be used to Mute during calls or to open the camera. The KEYone is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 2GHz octa-core processor with 3GB RAM, along with a 32GB internal memory and 2TB microSD card slot.

One of the best pieces of news is that the 3,505mAh battery is the largest ever to be put into a BlackBerry smartphone. This easily gives all day use for a typical user and has Quick Charge capability and the Boost power management tool, for faster charging through the USB Type-C port. In fact, 50% charge can be gained in only 36 minutes.

BlackBerry KEYone apps

The BlackBerry KEYone apps include a neat surprise with one allowing you to create shortcuts for individual keys, such as pressing ‘B’ to open the web browser. You also get Flick Typing, which is a form of predictive typing made easier with the ability to flick words onto the screen as you type. The keyboard offer auto-correction and next-word prediction and can work like a trackpad when viewing webpages.

Other BlackBerry favourites are pre-loaded too, such as the BlackBerry Hub that puts all of your messages, social notifications, call logs and calendar events in one place and Notes by BlackBerry, Tasks by BlackBerry and the Password Keeper.

BlackBerry security software and monthly security updates are provided, making this one of the most secure smartphones around. Although there are many BlackBerry created features, the KEYone runs on Android 7.1 Nougat, making it flexible and attractive to the mainstream audience.

BlackBerry KEYone camera

The BlackBerry KEYone has a 12MP camera that can capture sharp photos in any light, using the Sony IMX378 Sensor and large 1.55μm pixels. The camera can record 4K video, while the 8MP selfie camera has a wide angle lens and dedicated flash, along with a Selfie Panorama mode.